Root has by far the poorest team out of any of them so I give him some more leeway. I think we forget in time when Strauss declared far too late in the Windies for example. 1/2 anyway, going really well this.
We generally have some form of collapse, and had complete collapses a few times under this regime. Not great when you have a team that often struggles for both technique and ticker.
As has been mentioned there's an argument for a specialist captain as it's not like any of the batsmen apart from Root have secured their spot. Tom Abell or Rory Burns are decent shouts. Livingstone too as I don't think he's far from the side
Statto on sky just shared its the first time EVER that the opening pair in a home test have both been out for ducks. #special
He might have had the poorest team, but Strauss in particular built the team from a pretty poor state after the chaos of Moores / Pietersen. Regardless of quality available, no captain worth their salt should be losing control of a situation as quickly as Root did this morning. The fields that he was setting were mind boggling.
How can you have a captain who fails to add anything to the score in at least one innings repeatedly?
He'd have to be pretty special. But even then he'll require some very good teammates. Anyway I'm hoping Hameed can get through this and settle in. Do him the world of good to spend some time out there with the skipper
Because lots of our batsmen do that. We need to be tactically better and he's at least a club captain. And he's our 2nd highest run scorer this year. He also batted well in the NZ series. Not like we have anyone better right now either.
Burns is an odd one, in that he has a technique where so much can go wrong, but if he can have the right preparation and a run of games, he can score runs at this level. Unfortunately, he's as much of a victim of the schedules as the white ball players are. But at some point, somebody will have to take over. There's not too many captains that lead two ashes tours and his captaincy is reaching the sort of duration that predecessors haven't lasted. He'll probably want a spell where he can concentrate on his own game sooner rather than later. If he has a good Ashes, I think Burns might well be captain next year.
To be honest, if I were in charge, an ECB central contract would be heading to Essex, addressed to their opening batter. And the captain of the side would be whoever won the raffle.
Is Cook still playing? I thought he wanted to devote more time to his farm? I'm all quite zen about the team and lineup to be honest. I think the best thing we can do is just enjoy the performances of Andersen and Root while they are still around.
